Devices such as mobile phones, digital AV devices, and IC cards have been developed to have higher functions. Along with this, there are increasing needs for a smaller and thinner semiconductor silicon chip (hereinafter, referred to as a “chip”) mounted in such a device, in order to provide a greater number of chips in a package. For example, an integrated circuit including a plurality of chips in a single package, representative examples of which include CSP (chip size package) and MCP (multi-chip package), is requested to be made thinner. In order to provide a greater number of chips in a package, a thickness of a chip needs to be reduced to a range from 25 μm to 150 μm.
However, if a semiconductor wafer (hereinafter, referred to as a “wafer”), which serves as a base of the chip, is ground, a thickness of the wafer is reduced. This reduces the strength of the wafer, thereby easily causing a crack or warpage of the wafer. Further, it is difficult to automatically convey the wafer whose strength has been reduced due to the reduction in the thickness. Therefore, such a wafer must be conveyed by a human's hands. Thus, it is troublesome to handle such a wafer.
In order to address this problem, there has been developed a wafer handling system for preventing occurrence of a crack and warpage of a wafer by maintaining a strength of the wafer through use of a plate (called as a “support plate”) which is made from glass, a rigid plastic, or the like and is bonded to the wafer to be ground. With the wafer handling system, it is possible to maintain the strength of a wafer, thereby making it possible to automatically convey a semiconductor wafer which has been made thinner.
According to the wafer handling system, a wafer and a support plate are bonded to each other via an adhesive tape, a thermoplastic resin, an adhesive, or the like. Then, the wafer to which the support plate is bonded is made thinner, and then the support plate is stripped from the substrate before the wafer is diced. In a case where the wafer and the support plate are bonded to each other via an adhesive, the adhesive is dissolved so that the support plate is stripped from the wafer.
Patent Literature 1 describes an adhesive resin composition containing a polymer having an alicyclic structure.